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Students monitor local pollution

A University of Maine stormwater management program provides training opportunities for students and cost savings for municipalities.

Stormwater training program helps students and municipalities.


Stormwater training program helps students and municipalities.
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May 10, 2018

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Municipalities spend millions of dollars annually reducing the effects of stormwater runoff. An NSF-funded EPSCoR program at the University of Maine is helping decrease these costs. The Stormwater Management Research Team (SMART) program trains high school and college students in water sampling techniques and connects their learning to classroom math and science courses. Students monitor runoff in their communities alongside local water and engineering professionals. Since 2014, over 75 percent of the participating students self-identify as either female or racial minority, and 41 percent of those eligible are enrolled in a STEM degree program. With additional funding from an NSF INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) grant, the team in Maine formed the SMART INCLUDES Collaborative with eight other states to encourage K-12 underrepresented minorities to participate in the monitoring efforts.

NSF Directorate(s):
Office of Integrative Activities
Directorate for Geosciences

Locations
Maine

Related Awards
#1649346 NSF INCLUDES Collaborative: Creating a Diverse STEM Pathway with Community Water Research
#1348266 Engineering Innovative Solutions to Storm Water Problems through Diverse Community Participation

This NSF Impact is one of thousands of research outcomes made possible by NSF that help fuel the U.S. economy, enhance national security and sustain U.S. global leadership by advancing knowledge. You can search for more NSF Impacts at https://www.nsf.gov/impacts.

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